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Prelude to a Certain Midnight
In London under the fog of war, a 10-year-old Jewish girl is murdered. The police have no clues and little interest, so crusader Asta Thundesley takes up the challenge, sifting through clues and gathering up suspects for a dinner party where... nothing is learned. Detective Turpin goes by the book, and finds himself with a stunning set... of dead ends. Fascinating example of life's perils by author Kersh (Night and the City), who reminds for every winner, there can be a ton of losers. First published 1947.
182 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
11 people are currently reading
162 people want to read
About the author
Gerald Kersh
107 books61 followersGerald Kersh was born in Teddington-on-Thames, near London, and, like so many writers, quit school to take on a series of jobs -- salesman, baker, fish-and-chips cook, nightclub bouncer, freelance newspaper reporter and at the same time was writing his first two novels.
In 1937, his third published novel, Night and the City, hurled him into the front ranks of young British writers. Twenty novels later Kersh created his personal masterpiece, Fowler's End, regarded by many as one of the outstanding novels of the century. He also, throughout his long career, wrote more than 400 short stories and over 1,000 articles.
Once a professional wrestler, Kersh also fought with the Coldstream Guards in World War II. His account of infantry training They Die With Their Boots Clean (1941), became an instant best-seller during that war.
After traveling over much of the world, he became an American citizen, living quietly in Cragsmoor, in a remote section of the Shawangunk Mountains in New York State. He died in Kingston, NY, in 1968.
(Biography compiled from "Nightmares & Damnations" and Fantastic Fiction.)
In 1937, his third published novel, Night and the City, hurled him into the front ranks of young British writers. Twenty novels later Kersh created his personal masterpiece, Fowler's End, regarded by many as one of the outstanding novels of the century. He also, throughout his long career, wrote more than 400 short stories and over 1,000 articles.
Once a professional wrestler, Kersh also fought with the Coldstream Guards in World War II. His account of infantry training They Die With Their Boots Clean (1941), became an instant best-seller during that war.
After traveling over much of the world, he became an American citizen, living quietly in Cragsmoor, in a remote section of the Shawangunk Mountains in New York State. He died in Kingston, NY, in 1968.
(Biography compiled from "Nightmares & Damnations" and Fantastic Fiction.)
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February 27, 2024Extraordinarily bleak tragicomedy, where the tragedy is the rape and murder of an 11yo girl and the destruction it wreaks on the lives of her parents, and the wretched misery of a masochistic prostitute, so it's kind of amazing there's any comedy to be had.
Kersh is a desperately bleak writer. Fowlers End is simultaneously one of the funniest books I've ever read and absolutely brutal. This one is brutal and the comedie humaine pretty inhuman.
Is it misogynistic? Possibly. The blaming of masochistic (abused) women for creating monsters is...a thing, yes, but it's a thing done by the policeman, which no shit. But then, pretty much all the men are on a spectrum from ineffectual to murderer, and the glimmers of humanity almost all come from women (including the extraordinary, abrasive, painfully self-destructing but fundamentally good hearted Asta. I'm just not sure you can say an author is misogynistic when they're so profoundly misanthropic all round.
Not a fun read, but compelling, interestingly structured, and redolent of 30s London atmosphere. Kersh is really one of our major neglected writers and you'd think a Penguin reissue would be in order but he's probably too far over the edge for current tastes.
Kersh is a desperately bleak writer. Fowlers End is simultaneously one of the funniest books I've ever read and absolutely brutal. This one is brutal and the comedie humaine pretty inhuman.
Is it misogynistic? Possibly. The blaming of masochistic (abused) women for creating monsters is...a thing, yes, but it's a thing done by the policeman, which no shit. But then, pretty much all the men are on a spectrum from ineffectual to murderer, and the glimmers of humanity almost all come from women (including the extraordinary, abrasive, painfully self-destructing but fundamentally good hearted Asta. I'm just not sure you can say an author is misogynistic when they're so profoundly misanthropic all round.
Not a fun read, but compelling, interestingly structured, and redolent of 30s London atmosphere. Kersh is really one of our major neglected writers and you'd think a Penguin reissue would be in order but he's probably too far over the edge for current tastes.
March 2, 2020
This is the first non-weird/fantasy/horror tale by Gerald Kersh I've read.
This was a remarkable read.
It takes place in a London slum and features a colorful cast of dozens. A young Jewish girl is raped and murdered on her way home from school. The majority of the book concerns assorted characters' reactions to the crime -many of them regulars of a local bar, once popular prior to the murder, called the Bar Bacchus.
Every last patron - the lot of them potential suspects of a black hearted crime.
This is a strange mixture of accounts of British manners that tug at the heart set sometime in the mid-thirties moments before "Herr Hitler" threatens the world and at the same time, a humorous satire of those same overly-polite, super-sensitive British mores that bring to mind the works of Ray Davies and The Kinks, "Something Else", "Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur".
All this and child-rape & murder, too.
The solution to the crime doesn't come until the last two dozen pages and even then is a hazy affair. You'll learn the identity of the killer but by then it hardly even matters.
Exceptionally well-written novel by an author who is all but forgotten.
Not a book for everyone but all the same -highest recommendation.
As close a work of fine art as a novel is capable of being.
Reminiscent of Derek Raymond's The Factory series
This was a remarkable read.
It takes place in a London slum and features a colorful cast of dozens. A young Jewish girl is raped and murdered on her way home from school. The majority of the book concerns assorted characters' reactions to the crime -many of them regulars of a local bar, once popular prior to the murder, called the Bar Bacchus.
Every last patron - the lot of them potential suspects of a black hearted crime.
This is a strange mixture of accounts of British manners that tug at the heart set sometime in the mid-thirties moments before "Herr Hitler" threatens the world and at the same time, a humorous satire of those same overly-polite, super-sensitive British mores that bring to mind the works of Ray Davies and The Kinks, "Something Else", "Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur".
All this and child-rape & murder, too.
The solution to the crime doesn't come until the last two dozen pages and even then is a hazy affair. You'll learn the identity of the killer but by then it hardly even matters.
Exceptionally well-written novel by an author who is all but forgotten.
Not a book for everyone but all the same -highest recommendation.
As close a work of fine art as a novel is capable of being.
Reminiscent of Derek Raymond's The Factory series
January 26, 2014
On the surface, this novel is a murder mystery about the search for the killer of a little girl in 1930s London. But the murder is really just a launching pad for a gritty and blackly comic exploration of the city's underbelly and the seedy characters who live there. Even Asta Thundersly, the woman on a mission to uncover the killer (and one of the most memorable characters I've encountered in a novel in a very long time), is not especially likeable - she's every bit the battle axe that is her nickname. So why read a thriller that isn't really a thriller and with unlikeable characters? It's all about Kersh's writing. I can't believe he is not better known. He uses words like a magician, creating one brilliantly-drawn character after another; writing descriptions that are so evocative you feel like you are viewing rather than reading the novel; and constructing metaphors and dialogue exchanges that consistently amaze. You can tell that Kersh loved to write. Although the novel is an ultimately grim portrait of the human race, Kersh's exuberance for life comes through in every sentence.
February 25, 2017
I'd been wanting to read a Gerald Kersh novel for some time. I'd enjoyed several short stories in the past few years; stories that were often of a rather fantastic and strange nature, and knew that his novel Night and the City was the basis for the superb noir film of the same name starring Richard Widmark at his sleazy and energetic best. It interested me, too, that kersh was harlan Ellison's favourite writer. It seems that he's not very read today, and based on my experiences so far, I'd say that's a damn shame.
Don't be fooled by what you might read about this book. It's not really a murder mystery. For this reason I'm not too fussed about spoiling anything while writing this review. Oh, it concerns the horrible rape and murder of a young Jewish girl in 1930s London, and at the end, you will know who the murderer is, but it won't really leave you with any sense of satisfaction. This is more a study of human beings: how strange, frustrating and yet lovable they tend to be; how they react to adversity; what kind of mentality leads someone to be violent, or a perpetual victim, or maternal, or any number of other human foibles. If you think of a novel as a journey from beginning to end with focus and a clear goal in mind, you might find yourself disappointed. This book is probably 75% digressions. The thing is though, that they're very, very entertaining ones. Kersh invites you to sit beside him and let him tell you about these people who weave through the smoky streets with their lives and petty obsessions and eccentricities. These are not really character sketches or background though; they're more like impressions. Often they're sad and lonely, but sometimes, even then, they're uproariously funny. Kersh isn't being mean-spirited though, I think; he knows these people and the prose can turn "on a dime" from sort of contemptuous to affectionate. And isn't that the way most of us are with the people we know?
The most interesting person in this book is doubtless Ms. Asta Thundersley. She is, I think, what some impatient people today might term a "social justice warrior". Quite well-off in her way, quick to jump on board any cause that tugs on her heartstrings, and eagerly getting in peoples' faces and shouting loudly at them about this or that injustice. Sometimes Kersh takes the piss out of her a bit, but he is careful to show that most of the time, she's in the right, just lacks subtlety and finesse. She is brash and forthright and doesn't always make the best choices. It's an interesting combination of boldness and vulnerability that in fact I found rather endearing. You definitely get the sense that she is written as a "woman out of time", somewhat, and that today someone like her would have a lot more opportunities to make a positive social impact. Despite her railing against misogyny, abuse, racism and the like, she's also not quite as open-minded as one might suppose. her conversation with the police inspector about the meaning of sadomasochistic sexual relationships is really edifying in more ways than one, not to mention startlingly candid for a book written in 1947.
It's this candid quality that I think most drew me to the book. Kersh doesn't mince about or cater to anybody's sensibilities. he wants to tell a story and does in a way that is clever, sharp and occasionally really intense. Oh, you won't find graphic descriptions of rape and torture here but they are certainly alluded to, and no less strong because of it. Toward the end of Book II of this short novel we suddenly get chapters from the point of view of "The Murderer", as he apparently thinks of himself, and these are not just point of view chapters. This Murderer shares something in common with Asta Thundersley: They both have very vivid imaginations. So in Asta's case, we get her journey into the house where the young girl was killed, and it's a tour de force in uncanny writing, where the horror of the situation is brought out in very sharp detail and we can instantly see why kersh wasn't afraid to dabble in areas of the fantastic and "weird". When we turn to our Murderer, we get his daydreams, and there are a lot of them, and they are extremely strange and a very interesting study of psychopathy. He is a man who lives very much inside his own head, who is normally quiet and reserved yet nurses all his frustrations and pains and plays out scenarios in his head where he is alternately saviour and executioner, martyr and killer, poet and survivor. It's very heady stuff.
Ultimately I felt this was often a story about people reaching for something and almost getting there, but not quite making it. Asta is given the chance to sniff out the killer, and she does this by throwing a party at her home, to which she invites all the people who frequented the Bar Bacchus, because she is sure that one of them must be the monster. The party scene plays out like one of those embarrassing episodes in life a part of you wants to forget but which you just keep returning to because there was just something fascinating about it all: seeing people who are normally rigid and controlled being loosened by drink and saying and doing outlandish things. It's the kind of party where a man picks up a woman by saying, "are you a masochist? There's something about you that invites violence". The Murderer is indeed in attendence and keeps thinking that after the next drink he'll surprise them all by giving himself up (!), but of course the opportunity never seems quite grandiose enough, and then it's just too late. It's Asta's prim older sister who suddenly, in the last moments, perhaps in an attempt to impress her sibling, tries to be a hero because she thinks she's got it all figured out. Only, she can't quite make it happen, and in the end, feeling she's overstepped herself, feeling humiliated and embarrassed, she drops the whole thing and makes a quick exit, leaving Asta none the wiser and believing that her company and hospitality is being spurned. It's sad, sad business, because for a moment there, I thought she was going to be able to rise to the challenge, become a Ms. Marple so to speak, but .... this just isn't that kind of book.
The murderer is not apprehended. One of the last chapters describes how he loves to take his nephews and nieces' to the circus. he always gasps and cries out when the tamer brings out his beasts, or the acrobat, pretending to be drunk, vaults to the high wire. The children laugh at him, because they think their silly old uncle is sensitive, sweet; that he somehow doesn't realise that this is what goes on at the circus all the time. But he's really waiting for something to happen. Something tragic. Something violent. Maybe this one time the man on the wire might really be drunk. Maybe the trapeze artist will miss her mark. perhaps the savage beasts will turn on the trainer and claws will rend and teeth will tear, and then, there will be blood.
Don't be fooled by what you might read about this book. It's not really a murder mystery. For this reason I'm not too fussed about spoiling anything while writing this review. Oh, it concerns the horrible rape and murder of a young Jewish girl in 1930s London, and at the end, you will know who the murderer is, but it won't really leave you with any sense of satisfaction. This is more a study of human beings: how strange, frustrating and yet lovable they tend to be; how they react to adversity; what kind of mentality leads someone to be violent, or a perpetual victim, or maternal, or any number of other human foibles. If you think of a novel as a journey from beginning to end with focus and a clear goal in mind, you might find yourself disappointed. This book is probably 75% digressions. The thing is though, that they're very, very entertaining ones. Kersh invites you to sit beside him and let him tell you about these people who weave through the smoky streets with their lives and petty obsessions and eccentricities. These are not really character sketches or background though; they're more like impressions. Often they're sad and lonely, but sometimes, even then, they're uproariously funny. Kersh isn't being mean-spirited though, I think; he knows these people and the prose can turn "on a dime" from sort of contemptuous to affectionate. And isn't that the way most of us are with the people we know?
The most interesting person in this book is doubtless Ms. Asta Thundersley. She is, I think, what some impatient people today might term a "social justice warrior". Quite well-off in her way, quick to jump on board any cause that tugs on her heartstrings, and eagerly getting in peoples' faces and shouting loudly at them about this or that injustice. Sometimes Kersh takes the piss out of her a bit, but he is careful to show that most of the time, she's in the right, just lacks subtlety and finesse. She is brash and forthright and doesn't always make the best choices. It's an interesting combination of boldness and vulnerability that in fact I found rather endearing. You definitely get the sense that she is written as a "woman out of time", somewhat, and that today someone like her would have a lot more opportunities to make a positive social impact. Despite her railing against misogyny, abuse, racism and the like, she's also not quite as open-minded as one might suppose. her conversation with the police inspector about the meaning of sadomasochistic sexual relationships is really edifying in more ways than one, not to mention startlingly candid for a book written in 1947.
It's this candid quality that I think most drew me to the book. Kersh doesn't mince about or cater to anybody's sensibilities. he wants to tell a story and does in a way that is clever, sharp and occasionally really intense. Oh, you won't find graphic descriptions of rape and torture here but they are certainly alluded to, and no less strong because of it. Toward the end of Book II of this short novel we suddenly get chapters from the point of view of "The Murderer", as he apparently thinks of himself, and these are not just point of view chapters. This Murderer shares something in common with Asta Thundersley: They both have very vivid imaginations. So in Asta's case, we get her journey into the house where the young girl was killed, and it's a tour de force in uncanny writing, where the horror of the situation is brought out in very sharp detail and we can instantly see why kersh wasn't afraid to dabble in areas of the fantastic and "weird". When we turn to our Murderer, we get his daydreams, and there are a lot of them, and they are extremely strange and a very interesting study of psychopathy. He is a man who lives very much inside his own head, who is normally quiet and reserved yet nurses all his frustrations and pains and plays out scenarios in his head where he is alternately saviour and executioner, martyr and killer, poet and survivor. It's very heady stuff.
Ultimately I felt this was often a story about people reaching for something and almost getting there, but not quite making it. Asta is given the chance to sniff out the killer, and she does this by throwing a party at her home, to which she invites all the people who frequented the Bar Bacchus, because she is sure that one of them must be the monster. The party scene plays out like one of those embarrassing episodes in life a part of you wants to forget but which you just keep returning to because there was just something fascinating about it all: seeing people who are normally rigid and controlled being loosened by drink and saying and doing outlandish things. It's the kind of party where a man picks up a woman by saying, "are you a masochist? There's something about you that invites violence". The Murderer is indeed in attendence and keeps thinking that after the next drink he'll surprise them all by giving himself up (!), but of course the opportunity never seems quite grandiose enough, and then it's just too late. It's Asta's prim older sister who suddenly, in the last moments, perhaps in an attempt to impress her sibling, tries to be a hero because she thinks she's got it all figured out. Only, she can't quite make it happen, and in the end, feeling she's overstepped herself, feeling humiliated and embarrassed, she drops the whole thing and makes a quick exit, leaving Asta none the wiser and believing that her company and hospitality is being spurned. It's sad, sad business, because for a moment there, I thought she was going to be able to rise to the challenge, become a Ms. Marple so to speak, but .... this just isn't that kind of book.
The murderer is not apprehended. One of the last chapters describes how he loves to take his nephews and nieces' to the circus. he always gasps and cries out when the tamer brings out his beasts, or the acrobat, pretending to be drunk, vaults to the high wire. The children laugh at him, because they think their silly old uncle is sensitive, sweet; that he somehow doesn't realise that this is what goes on at the circus all the time. But he's really waiting for something to happen. Something tragic. Something violent. Maybe this one time the man on the wire might really be drunk. Maybe the trapeze artist will miss her mark. perhaps the savage beasts will turn on the trainer and claws will rend and teeth will tear, and then, there will be blood.
March 9, 2021
this is a hidden gem its leftfield with all the characters and makes you think and a very underrated author who died in poverty and makes you think as the novel goes along.
July 25, 2010
"There's something about you that invites violence."
Another example of brash, honest and wickedly smart writing from Kersh. It's obvious that the man had a voracious appetite for life, and really saw the world and all the types of people cluttering it up for what it was - and this is what separates him from many, many other and more well-known authors - the bookish, retiring types whittling away at novels filled with literary style, but devoid of real human substance. Which Kersh filled his books with, filled them with stinking and ingenious humanity - till they were bursting with it.
And why not, he'd probably ask. Sit down and have a read of this, mate, wrap your mind around this, it'll sober you up right quick, make you forget all those silly little notions you had about brotherly love and do unto others. You ought to pack all that thinking in, just look where its got you.
Kersh went out and got amongst it! And he's seen all types, and had his innate appreciation for his fellow man blunted by the cowardly, craven, gutless masses of criminals and scheisters... and all their ilk, but his love for life, his bold love for life remained just as keen; his wit and powers of observation and description stayed sharp, even grew sharper over the years.
A dead hot proper piece of writing, this. Kersh must have been damn satisfied to sit back and reflect on writing something like this. I can only imagine his sense of satisfaction at having turned this belter in at the publisher's office, and strode out of the building like he owned the place. This is how you do it.
Another example of brash, honest and wickedly smart writing from Kersh. It's obvious that the man had a voracious appetite for life, and really saw the world and all the types of people cluttering it up for what it was - and this is what separates him from many, many other and more well-known authors - the bookish, retiring types whittling away at novels filled with literary style, but devoid of real human substance. Which Kersh filled his books with, filled them with stinking and ingenious humanity - till they were bursting with it.
And why not, he'd probably ask. Sit down and have a read of this, mate, wrap your mind around this, it'll sober you up right quick, make you forget all those silly little notions you had about brotherly love and do unto others. You ought to pack all that thinking in, just look where its got you.
Kersh went out and got amongst it! And he's seen all types, and had his innate appreciation for his fellow man blunted by the cowardly, craven, gutless masses of criminals and scheisters... and all their ilk, but his love for life, his bold love for life remained just as keen; his wit and powers of observation and description stayed sharp, even grew sharper over the years.
A dead hot proper piece of writing, this. Kersh must have been damn satisfied to sit back and reflect on writing something like this. I can only imagine his sense of satisfaction at having turned this belter in at the publisher's office, and strode out of the building like he owned the place. This is how you do it.
August 2, 2020
Back in 1953, Prelude to a Certain Midnight must have unsettled the regular readers of “Mystery and Crime” Penguins since, although there is a murder, a detective, and a murderer, it is not a whodunnit - the real mystery being why Asta Thundersley slapped Catchy, which is ultimately resolved in a quite unexpected and thought-provoking way.
The novel is (mainly) set in the London of 1935 or thereabouts and Kersh has fun caricaturing the regulars of the Bar Bacchus. One faded beauty has eyes that look like “a couple of cockroaches desperately swimming in two saucers of boiled rhubarb”. Another regular, an earnest Christian, has a project to modernize and dramatize the whole Bible, his rendition of Peter’s denial of Christ including: “This bastard with the beard was with that God-damn Radical agitator.” – “Who, me? Honest to God de dame’s screwy! I was not!” – “Why, you lying son of a bitch, you were so!” etc.
Not all humour, however. There is some quite unsettling (even uncanny) prose, particularly in the description of the derelict house in which the rape and murder of a young Jewish girl – a far nastier crime than one might expect – took place.
Prelude to a Certain Midnight is not as realistic a slice of London life as – say – Patrick Hamilton’s Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky – Kersh is too fond of caricature for that – and structurally it is a little loose at the seams. But it is nonetheless an original and distinctive work from a sadly underrated writer.
The novel is (mainly) set in the London of 1935 or thereabouts and Kersh has fun caricaturing the regulars of the Bar Bacchus. One faded beauty has eyes that look like “a couple of cockroaches desperately swimming in two saucers of boiled rhubarb”. Another regular, an earnest Christian, has a project to modernize and dramatize the whole Bible, his rendition of Peter’s denial of Christ including: “This bastard with the beard was with that God-damn Radical agitator.” – “Who, me? Honest to God de dame’s screwy! I was not!” – “Why, you lying son of a bitch, you were so!” etc.
Not all humour, however. There is some quite unsettling (even uncanny) prose, particularly in the description of the derelict house in which the rape and murder of a young Jewish girl – a far nastier crime than one might expect – took place.
Prelude to a Certain Midnight is not as realistic a slice of London life as – say – Patrick Hamilton’s Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky – Kersh is too fond of caricature for that – and structurally it is a little loose at the seams. But it is nonetheless an original and distinctive work from a sadly underrated writer.
March 15, 2020
In A Desolate Corner of London
Gerald Kersh takes a story of a child-murder complete with a drawing room expose of the killer and turns it into something far different than a regular crime story. In fact, what he does is in some ways provide a satire of the genre. Don't read this for action-packed chase scenes. Rather, open this up and savor Kersh's descriptions of the most odd eccentric group of neighbors you ever met. A keen observer of human nature, Kersh has created characters like you wouldn't believe, trapped in their own worlds of pain, despair, grief, loneliness, and alcoholism.
Gerald Kersh takes a story of a child-murder complete with a drawing room expose of the killer and turns it into something far different than a regular crime story. In fact, what he does is in some ways provide a satire of the genre. Don't read this for action-packed chase scenes. Rather, open this up and savor Kersh's descriptions of the most odd eccentric group of neighbors you ever met. A keen observer of human nature, Kersh has created characters like you wouldn't believe, trapped in their own worlds of pain, despair, grief, loneliness, and alcoholism.
July 17, 2020
After reading Nightshade & Damnation, Kersh's book of short stories edited by Harlan Ellison, I started searching for other Kersh works. This 1947 novel is a mystery gem about an socialite activist convinced that a child's murderer is one of her acquaintances from a local bar. She hosts a party hoping to catch the killer -- who, we learn, actually wants to confess. Kersh's style may seem old-fashioned, with his lush prose and Dickensian names, but the tale is fast-moving, fun, suspenseful, and surprising. This isn't considered one of his major works; I'm rationing those, and expect some fine reading to come.
June 30, 2020
First published 1947. 177 pages. A different style and quantity of writing compared to today's 1,000 page blockbusters. Makes a nice change. A different world.
July 17, 2018
Gerald Kersh's PRELUDE TO A CERTAIN MIDNIGHT is generally considered a noir, a murder story. It is not. For all intents and purposes, it should be depressing as hell. It is not. The novel is a panorama of the eccentrics, artists, and boozehounds of London's East End. One major character is a not-particularly-successful Jewish tailor (like my grandfather). In short, this world of bombed out, heart-broken London is the world in which my mother was raised. Similar in theme to Kersh's later FOWLERS END, PRELUDE is a portrait of the lost and rudderless in a modern world that has passed them by. A girl is murdered and everyone knows that one of the habitues of the Bar Bacchus is probably the villain. A Dedicated Amateur Do-Gooder and societal gadfly turns amateur private detective, but her glamorous, distant younger sister may have the better aptitude for it. Drunks, a broken prostitute, and boxers rub shoulders with the fallen elite, while an Inspector from Scotland Yard wearily goes through the motions of investigating a near insolvable case. Part Dickens, Part Existential void, PRELUDE is the most charming novel of mayhem and despair that you are ever likely to read.
November 12, 2013
Gerald Kersh was a unique talent; he wrote like nobody else, he sometimes attained perfection in his short stories while most of his novels tend to fall apart at some point after promising beginnings. Prelude to a Certain Midnight is the exception. It delivers the special Kersh flavor right to the end.
September 1, 2017
This is an odd book. Structurally it's maddening, seeming to follow no discernible narrative structure. The details are sometimes fascinating, sometimes dull. The digressions are frequent and extensive for a 200 page book. And yet I can't say I didn't enjoy the book at all.
September 5, 2021
Quite an odd book. The first half in particular seems to consist of a series of character sketches. These are entertaining, and well-written, but it is only in the second half of the book that the main plot comes to the fore. There are some deep issues discussed, and the writer has a very original way in dealing with the mystery genre.
September 20, 2020
This book reminded me of the older clerk who rings you up in the store, holding up their own line to tell you a twenty minute story that anyone else could have relayed in 90 seconds or less. I'll give Kersh another shot in the future.
January 5, 2017
I liked the first chapter of this book a lot and that encouraged me to go on with it (this is my first taste of Kersh's work). It went quickly downhill from there! Ostensibly it's a murder mystery (who killed little Sonia Sabbatani in the fog in 193os London?) but really it's just an excuse for Kersh to introduce a bewilderingly large cast of implausible and unpleasant bohemian characters with very implausible names (Cigarette, Sir Storrington Thirst, Tom Beano or Shocket the Bloodsucker anyone?) and then ruthlessly send them up. The larger-than-life battleaxe Asta Thundersley, an entertaining force of nature who is as close to a central character as this rambling, formless book gets, attempts to unravel the mystery and is at the heart of most of the best scenes but is then inexplicably sidelined as the book approaches its (not very exciting at all) conclusion. Almost without exception all the characters are disreputable and dislikeable and I really didn't care for or about any of them.
Prelude to a Certain Midnight reminded me quite strongly of Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth, published three years earlier. That book is also rambling and at times experimental but it contains the great character of Gulley Jimson (brilliantly played in the film version by Alec Guinness) and is far superior as a piece of art to the volume under review. Prelude to a Certain Midnight has a very seedy feel to it and despite some funny moments (almost all of them involving Asta) just didn't appeal to me. However, I am not giving up on Kersh just yet and will most probably try some of his army stories next.
Prelude to a Certain Midnight reminded me quite strongly of Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth, published three years earlier. That book is also rambling and at times experimental but it contains the great character of Gulley Jimson (brilliantly played in the film version by Alec Guinness) and is far superior as a piece of art to the volume under review. Prelude to a Certain Midnight has a very seedy feel to it and despite some funny moments (almost all of them involving Asta) just didn't appeal to me. However, I am not giving up on Kersh just yet and will most probably try some of his army stories next.
July 31, 2011
Niall Martin's brief description has this book cold. I would add that the novel is loosely organized almost to the point of incoherence, since much of it consists of a series of grotesque character sketches of the denizens of London's Bohemia. Kersh seems more intent on settling scores with old acquaintances than anything else, but the writing is so lively and amusing that one usually forgets the novel's other shortcomings.
April 23, 2013
incoherent and difficult to follow
full review here
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.u...
full review here
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.u...
Want to read
March 2, 2019Synopsis: in war-time London, a 10-year-old Jewish girl is murdered. The police have no clues so crusader Asta Thundesley accepts the challenge.
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